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HTC Thunderbolt on Straight Talk HELP!!

Ok Gotta a quick ??? seen a reputable seller on Ebay selling HTC thunderbolts that are on Straight talk Service
I have an unlocked thunderbolt already not tied to an account or anything I want to put it on Straight talk

how do I go about doing this buying a Nokia E71 and activate it and take that sim and put it in the unlocked thunderbolt
or can I get another one of the straight talk AT&T phones and put the sim in there

Does it have to be the E71 or can it be any other phone?
I really wanna use this thunderbolt

The gist of it is that it will work for a little while (long enough for eBay sellers to get positive feedback, which can't be altered or retracted by the buyer), but eventually it craps out due to a "pending transaction" error that prevents refilling or switching handsets.

As the previous poster stated, in involves altering the phone's MEID - which is a big legal can o' worms.

I'm so tired of people scared to talk about ESN cloning. This is not illegal if you own both phones. It is against the terms of service of the cell provider, but that doesn't make it illegal.

It is quite simple to put a Thunderbolt on straight talk. You don't need a clean/unlocked or anything on the thunderbolt side. All you need a straight talk Verizon network CDMA model phone. Those are the ones that end with C in the model number. The ones that end in G are GSM and will not work. You'll then take the donor phone's ESN and make that the ESN of the thunderbolt. Total cost including first month of service is $75 doing it yourself. There are places online that do it for $100, but make sure that they are including the donor phone price in that quote. Some do and some want you to provide that.

You'll then take the donor phone's ESN and make that the ESN of the thunderbolt. Total cost including first month of service is $75 doing it yourself.

You left out the part where it stops working because Straight Talk realizes you're using way more data than that 1xRTT donor was ever capable of, or their "Air Tank" software goes too long without a response and locks your account.

Straight Talk is more than happy to boot totally legitimate customers from AT&T for excessive data usage. You expect them to treat a cloned phone on Verizon any better?

Here is the lowdown

Originally Posted by gotanmp3

Straight Talk is more than happy to boot totally legitimate customers from AT&T for excessive data usage. You expect them to treat a cloned phone on Verizon any better?

Yep. It depends on your first two months of usage. Flags then are issued if data usage is a percentage higher than that. Also, in the first 5 weeks you are on a probation where certain things will be noticed more. For instance... running speedtest and connecting to known speedtest servers used to be an issue. Not really anymore though. If you do all the Verizon logins correctly (or use a Samsung Verizon provisioned phone) you'll be fine. Verizon data is expensive for straight talk, but as long as you are still profitable for ST you'll be fine. Also, the feature phones are indeed 3G.

If you are worried about feature phone ESNs on your smartphone you could use Sprint network on straight talk. They have a phone that uses that now. The carrier that actively monitors and polls is Virgin Mobile. VM will cut you off if you didn't take the time to do the 3 logins right... and other tags that may be checked. People still haven't figured all of them out yet. It is wrong to think though that flashing over to ST isn't worth it. It most certainly is worth it. Besides, you can always go over to Verizon prepaid for $50/mo. Their donor phones are $20. As long as you stay under 2GB you should be fine there. If ST decides to cut you off then you are simply out $30 for another donor phone... or sometimes you can buy the packages for $50 that get you a backup donor phone and a $45 airtime card.

I can understand that for a lot of users it just might not be worth the effort. That is fine. This wasn't ever meant for you anyway. I can also see where users that are stuck in contracts don't like the idea that contracts should never be signed anymore with all of the MVNO carriers out there. I can't help it if you made a bad decision.

If you do all the Verizon logins correctly (or use a Samsung Verizon provisioned phone) you'll be fine. Verizon data is expensive for straight talk, but as long as you are still profitable for ST you'll be fine. Also, the feature phones are indeed 3G.

I've seen how it ultimately dies, though. The phone starts getting random computerized text messages intended to go to the Air Tank software, which can't be properly replied to by a cloned phone. Straight Talk then puts a "pending transaction" on the account, which blocks your ability to refill or switch phones. Or, you wake up one morning and Verizon's anti-fraud system decides you're done and disables the account on their end - which seems to be the frequent fate of Sprint phones that get cloned onto Straight Talk.

As far as donors go, there are some EVDO phones on Straight Talk's Verizon service, but they're all either rare and expensive or just expensive. Either way, though, a feature phone isn't going to use nearly as much data as a smartphone, so you'll have the "stick out like a sore thumb" problem regardless of which donor is used.

Originally Posted by Kyle Freeman

If you are worried about feature phone ESNs on your smartphone you could use Sprint network on straight talk.

That would eliminate the "Air Tank" problems, but there are no inexpensive donor phones. May as well just use Boost instead, which is the same native Sprint network, plenty of people use cloned phones successfully with no issues, the donors are cheap and plentiful and you get Shrinkage.

That would eliminate the "Air Tank" problems, but there are no inexpensive donor phones. May as well just use Boost instead, which is the same native Sprint network, plenty of people use cloned phones successfully with no issues, the donors are cheap and plentiful and you get Shrinkage.

Agreed.

The LG 220C I believe is a 3G feature phone for only $40. I have gotten the ping messages as well though if you are not on autobilling it won't matter as the system resets every month and will only start pinging again after several more months. Even if you happen to trigger something simply waiting 3-5 days in between adding a new airtime card will save you. For most people though none of this will ever come into effect and straight talk really has gotten super lax on enforcing this. The only reason I can think of is that they now offer the SIMs and the Sprint phone. I still hold to that as long as you are still profitable for them when they go to pay their Verizon data charges then straight talk won't care.

Oh, and as a tip, if your data is cut off by the flagging system you can just call them up and have them reprovision your data for you. They immediately do it. The reps don't care what phone you are using though I wouldn't blatantly come out and tell them either. The reps are graded on length of calls and whether they can mark issues as resolved with customer staying subscribed or not. I would not make it a habit of calling them a lot though as you are also logged on how many times you call and are "billed" accordingly. You never see this bill and you are not the one that pays for it, but it exists. Straight talk pays it on your behalf and when it gets too much you will get cut off. This is pretty standard though among all carriers. T-Mobile has a similar system, but are reluctant to use it nowadays (T-Mobile has the best customer reps on the phone.) Also, Verizon will capitulate to your requests more if you are in a certain bracket of time used up by calling so much. Be careful though as Verizon will also drop you quickly as well as try to then charge you the ETF.

This is probably way more information that you need. I just have a lot of contacts that I can ask and find out the info from. Let me know if anyone has any more questions.

Again, the normal user probably won't run into problems and if you are not actively looking to do this or find it confusing then this is not for you. This is for the people that want to spend just a little time and effort to spend less money. I take it that is most people on a forum like this, but I understand that there are those who think this is way more trouble than it is worth as well.

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